


Timing is Everything

by onward_came_the_meteors



Series: October 2020 Prompts [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Hurt Clint Barton, Injury, M/M, One Shot, POV Third Person, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Relationship, Protective Bruce Banner, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26912806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: Maybe taking a hit meant for the Hulk wasn't one of Clint's better ideas.But at least it gives him the opportunity to finally talk to Bruce.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Clint Barton
Series: October 2020 Prompts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947679
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	Timing is Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9, for the prompt "take me instead"

The arrow whistled through the air and found its mark with a thud, right in the center of the gate. The little red light on its shaft blinked once, twice, then faster and faster until the gate exploded with a  _ BOOM. _

Clint ducked behind a column just in time to avoid the blast, although he did feel a searing heat ruffle against his left side. He brought up a hand to touch the com in his ear as he spoke.

“Gate’s down. All clear.” He glanced quickly to his left and right, his stomach sinking when he spotted the guards racing for him. Apparently, blowing up one of the entrances to their super-secret evil headquarters wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile. “Uh, scratch that. Might need backup.”

Clint reached behind him only for his fingers to brush against an all-but-empty quiver. “Aw, great.” He gripped his bow with his free hand and stared up at the sky. It was cloudy and gray, but not enough that it would start raining. Although, with the way the day had gone so far, coupled with his own usual luck, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

The guards were nearing him, almost close enough that they could start shooting at him. Clint did not want to be shot at.

He was about to try and see if he could scale the side of the column when a familiar  _ whoosh _ filled the air and Iron Man swooped down out of the sky in a blur of red and gold.

Tony’s voice echoed out of the helmet. “Heard someone needed a dramatic rescue?” He held out his hands and aimed repulsors at the ground in front of the guards’ feet, sending them toppling into one another.

“Well, you’re good for one of those things.” Clint took aim and fired his last grappling arrow straight up at the sky, where Tony caught it in one metal glove and yanked Clint smoothly off the ground.

Well, smoothly for Tony. Clint felt like his arms were being yanked out of their sockets and his internal organs were exiting through his throat, but at least he was out of the line of fire.

Tony soared higher in the air, meaning Clint was pulled along with him. Clint tucked in his legs and tightened his grip on the arrow’s shaft as he wobbled back and forth at the end of the rope. Air blew in his face and forced him to squint, but he could still make out the shapes of this latest enemy base growing smaller and smaller down below.

The base was located in the hollow of what must be the only mountains in the state that weren’t taken over by public hiking trails—Clint imagined that would make it harder to conduct sinister experiments in peace. It was a solid building with decent enough security, given that it had managed to slow down the Avengers for almost forty-five minutes, and it was ringed with a series of gates only accessible with a special code and proper identification. However, as Clint had discovered, an explosive arrow worked just as well in a pinch.

He didn’t know too many of the details of what kind of information these scientists had uncovered that warranted sending the Avengers in, but he could put together a pretty good picture based on the way Steve had been pulled aside for a “talk” back at S.H.I.E.L.D. and Natasha had been asked if her German was still good (Of course it was. Once Natasha learned a language, she had it down forever, unlike Clint, who tended to mess up pronunciations after being out of practice) and if she would be able to read any documents they might find.

Clint might not have been one of the geniuses on the team, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot.

They swerved up and around one of the sections of the building, the rope swinging wildly. Clint had never been afraid of heights—it was kind of his job not to be afraid of heights—but he was very aware of just how high up they were, and while Tony had the suit, Clint was clinging onto the end of a rope and would most definitely go  _ splat _ if he were to hit the ground from here.

“Did you bring an umbrella?” he asked, lifting his head to watch the red metal underside of the suit above him.

“What?” Tony dove underneath a wire and came back up again, wheeling around another tall column. “Barton, how close were you to that last explosion?”

“Never mind.” Clint pressed his cheek into the rope as the wind sliced his hair back from his face. He wouldn’t have to make the conversation for long anyway; this was Tony who was flying him.

Sure enough, only a few seconds had passed before Tony started relaying information either from the coms or his robot AI voice. “All right, so Natalie and Captain Spangles are in, probably raining hell down on whatever poor schmuck scientists were left inside. All we’ve got to do is break through the second gate and we can join them.”

“So, what’s the catch?”

“Well—” They flew over a roof and circled in on the gate, where the weapon system immediately locked onto them and fired. Tony deflected the shot with another repulsor blast, but more were incoming—fast. “—they  _ really _ don’t want us to break through the second gate.”

The next few minutes were a whirlwind—literally—as Iron Man had to swerve and dodge and maneuver the suit  _ very very _ quickly while he tried to get in a shot at the second set of gates. JARVIS could be heard giving instructions through the helmet, but Clint’s ears were overwhelmed by things exploding and repulsors firing and metal wrenching and the wind screaming as they shot by. 

Everything was spinning from ground to sky to building to sky again before he could process, and closing his eyes just made him dizzier. Clint really, really wished he’d brought more arrows.

“J, how’re my chances of a clear shot at the east tower?” Tony asked. They started to veer off in another direction, narrowly avoiding another blast from the artillery mounted on top of the gates. Clint’s hand slid an inch down the rope, and he quickly grabbed hold again.

“I would not recommend that, sir,” JARVIS replied instantly. “Such a maneuver would likely endanger Agent Barton’s situation.”

Clint would have proved him wrong, but just then, he almost slammed into the side of the building as they did another loop by. “Ha, I knew I was the favorite.”

“Do you want me to drop you?” Tony glanced down at him for a moment, and Clint could only imagine what his expression was behind the eye holes of the faceplate. “Yikes. You ever play with a yo-yo as a kid? Because—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Clint said as he continued to spin around at the end of the rope. “You can set me down any time, you know.”

He got the very distinct feeling that Tony was raising his eyebrows. “Right. Set down the archer who’s run out of arrows in the heavily defended enemy base that even Thor is having trouble breaking into. No way that could possibly—”

Clint stopped listening as they swerved around another corner and he caught the first glimpse of the Hulk he’d seen since… hmm, maybe twenty minutes ago, when they were still working at the first set of gates and the big guy had decided that Thor would make a great projectile. He would’ve been worried if Thor hadn’t been so enthusiastic himself—and it  _ had _ worked out fine. No casualties, anyway.

Seeing the Hulk in battle was a lot different than seeing him out of it—whenever he didn’t want to change back right away after a fight, whenever Bruce would transform by accident (rare occasions by themselves), and the bits and pieces he could remember from the helicarrier. Those times, it was easier to understand what Bruce meant when he said he was “always angry;” the Hulk would be upset and brimming with energy that was too big for the room and crushing everything around him with a fury that glowed radioactive green.  _ In  _ battle, though… well, he was in his element. There was no other way of putting it as bits of what used to be security stations turned to rubble in his fists and he launched himself at the gate with a fervor dialed to eleven.

Clint was almost mesmerized as they flew closer, at the sheer force of power contained in those huge green muscles as the Hulk strained against the gates until they opened with a  _ pop _ like a soda can.

The feeling was shattered, however, when Clint spotted it: the artillery system mounted on top of a nearby column, shuddering to life as it swiveled and pointed—

—right dead center of the Hulk’s back.

The gun fired. Clint didn’t stop to think.

He let go of the rope and dropped as the scream of incoming fire whistled louder and louder in his ears, ignoring Tony’s surprised shout from above.

The blast caught him before he had even hit the ground, fierce and sharp and incredibly, incredibly hot. His skin felt like it had been ripped off, only sticky blood and organs exposed to the burning and the flames. He opened his mouth, but any sound he might have made was swallowed up as he tumbled over and over through the air, limp and lifeless.

He never hit the ground, he didn’t think.

He hit  _ something _ ; something had reached out and plucked him from underneath, a rough cushion for his back that he sank into without meaning to as his head lolled and thought swiftly left his brain.

The last thing Clint saw before he fell into unconsciousness was a set of panicked green eyes staring down at him.

* * *

Sunlight.

There was sunlight against his closed eyelids. That was weird, because he was pretty sure it had been cloudy before. Of course the sun would’ve chosen to come out  _ now _ , now that he was trying to sleep—

Clint groaned, his eyes flickering open before he’d really given them permission to. One of the drawbacks of being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent—it was hard to relax when you knew you were being watched. Even though his entire body felt like it was on fire and moving any muscle at all had been knocked down to the absolute bottom on the list of things he wanted to do.

He blinked, settling the fog out of his vision.

Bruce Banner was crouched on the ground next to him, back in human form and staring at him with wide eyes.  _ Deja vu. _

There were a lot of things Clint could have said—he could’ve said “Is the fight over?” or “Did we win?” or “Where are we?” or “Am I actually on fire?”—or he could’ve made incoherent noises and stayed unconscious, which was rapidly seeming like the most attractive option as his body woke up and started sending him all the pain signals he’d missed while he was blissfully asleep.

What he settled on, however, was: “Hey, he left you your pants this time.”

Reflexively, Bruce looked down, where the ripped shreds of brown fabric were just barely clinging to his legs. He shook his head and snapped back into focus, continuing to wrap bandages around Clint’s shoulder and his arm and part of his leg and a little bit of his neck—yeah, basically around all of Clint. There was a crumpled-up piece of cloth on the ground next to him, stained a reddish-brown like it had been used to… well, he could pick up context clues.

“Hold still,” Bruce muttered. His voice was still a little raspy from the Hulk, but he was moving faster than he usually did after changing back, picking up the bandages with practiced efficiency. “I’m trying to clean you up."

“Why’re you doing that?” 

Clint struggled to sit up, but a sharp pain sliced through his chest, his arms stinging as he tried to brace them against the ground, and he made an involuntary noise. Bruce pushed him back down.

“I’m not kidding, Clint—quit moving around.”

“But mission.”

“But not bleeding out from head trauma.” Bruce shot him a look before reaching for another strip of bandage for a spot above Clint’s elbow.

“Aw, you do care.” The agent side of Clint’s brain apparently determined that there was no immediate danger, and he let his eyes slide shut again for a moment. Wherever they were, it was quiet and peaceful—no sights or sounds or smells from the fight. Which probably wasn’t all that great for the chances of their teammates finding them again, but for lying completely still in the grass and letting the sun warm his sweat-and-blood-covered face, he’d give it a ten out of ten.

One of the blades of grass drifted into Clint’s ear, but when he went to brush it off, he discovered something interesting.

“Bruce, I can’t move my arm.”

Bruce made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat and hid his face in his hands. “Yeah, I’m  _ not surprised _ ,” he said in a muffled voice. “Yet another reason why you should hold still.”

Clint wasn’t going to respond to that and instead watched as Bruce peeked out again and ripped off another bandage strip. “Where’d you get all that, anyway?” He knew Bruce had worked as a doctor for a while, but he didn’t think the Hulk tended to be all that good at carrying around emergency equipment.

“Compartment in the bottom of your quiver.”

He blinked. “Really? Guess they don’t trust me.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t.” That part was said under Bruce’s breath and Clint figured he probably wasn’t meant to hear, but then Bruce paused and glanced at him. “I did mention you’re insane, taking a hit for the Other Guy, right?”

Clint would’ve shrugged if his shoulder hadn’t been aching. “You guys didn’t hire me for my critical thinking skills.”

Bruce buried his head in his hands again. That probably wasn’t sanitary, given how Bruce had just been poking around his open wounds, but since both of them were covered in sweat and grime and also out on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, they already weren’t exactly complying with proper medical guidelines.

“Eh,” Clint continued, because Bruce hadn’t said anything in a while and talking was distracting him from the ever-present  _ ow _ pulsing through his entire body. “I’ve worked through worse anyway.”

“Should we not be letting you fight, then?” A faint smile ghosted across Bruce’s face.

Clint grinned. “Will you write me a doctor’s note?”

Bruce shook his head again, but his eyes were bright as he finished wrapping up what seemed to be the last of Clint’s injuries. Well, the major ones, anyway. Most of them. Hopefully most of them?

Either way, they’d run out of bandages, so it had better be most of them. Clint squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of dizziness rolled over him. His shoulder throbbed.

“That’s so cute, by the way,” he mumbled. His head was starting to stop spinning, but it wasn’t quite all the way there yet, so he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d spoken aloud or if the thought had just been floating around in his brain.

Especially when Bruce didn’t answer for a solid eight seconds, and when he did, it was only to say, “What?”

“S’cute.” Clint blinked, trying to keep his eyes settled as they darted from the sky to Bruce’s face to the fuzziness at the edges of his vision. “You. The ‘Other Guy.’ You’re both all… protective.”

Bruce snorted. “Yeah, I bet  _ he’s  _ real protective.” 

“No, he is, though,” Clint insisted. “He carried me here, didn’t he?”

“Yeah!” Bruce’s voice was still hoarse and threatened to crack as he slid back an inch away from Clint. “Away from the team and the jet and any hope of real medical attention! Do you know how I felt when I woke up and found out I had—had—” He gestured around helplessly, either at the mountain or at Clint’s injuries or just at everything in general.

Clint started to move his hand toward where Bruce’s was braced in the grass, but a twinge of pain had him hiss and he let it go limp. He gave Bruce his best cheeky grin. “You’re the only medical attention I need, Banner.”

“Uh-huh.” Bruce didn’t seem convinced, proven further when he looked pointedly at the various bandaged wounds scattered all over Clint’s body. “You sure about that?”

“Yes.” Clint’s grin faded, and he studied Bruce with a furrow in his brow. “What, you think I don’t trust you?”

Bruce went still. Clint would’ve wondered if his teammate had heard him or not if it hadn’t been for the fact that Bruce suddenly wouldn’t meet his eyes. His hands had come out to fiddle with the ends of his sleeves, forgetting that his shirt had been destroyed.

Minutes passed. 

_ Oh my god, I’ve finally broken Banner. Shit. _

“Hey,” Clint said at last. He lifted his head as high as he dared to meet Bruce’s gaze. “It’s not a trick question.”

Bruce let out a long breath. “I… I… I just don’t… that’s very nice of you, Clint, but I know you don’t—”

“Hell yes I do.” Oh god, he really hadn’t been meaning to get into this. Didn’t he have a head injury? Because that would explain it, explain why he was now talking freely about something he hadn’t mentioned to  _ anyone _ (okay, Nat, but talking about it to her had actually been easier than admitting it to himself), with actual  _ Bruce whatever-his-middle-name-was Banner, shit. _

But the more he kept talking, the more a weight seemed to lift off his chest—the weight that had been there before he’d launched himself into the path of open fire, anyway—and some tiny part of his brain whispered that he’d already started digging this hole, so he might as well lay it all out.

“D’you know how many times the Hulk has saved my ass in a firefight?” he continued. “And you and your genius brain get us out of  _ plenty  _ of tight scrapes. Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

“You mean, beyond the obvious?” Bruce waved a hand vaguely at Clint. “I mean, you’re… you’re a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. I didn’t think you, you know… trusted easily.”

Clint laughed. “Oh, definitely not. That started way before I became an agent, though.”

Now it was his turn to be quiet.

“You’re right. I don’t trust a lot of people, Bruce. I could probably count the number on my fingers if moving my hand wasn’t completely impossible and also ouch right now. But you… you’re, uh…” He cast a meaningful look on Bruce, his eyes flicking up and down as his teammate flushed. “An open book.”

Bruce muttered “Thanks” under his breath, but he brushed his hair out of his face and gave Clint a small smile before casting a glance around at the empty mountaintop. 

“Well, this is pretty much all I can do without proper medical equipment—we’re gonna need to wait until the team finds us for that, because I am  _ not _ moving you.”

Clint nodded. “Great; nap time, then.” He sunk back into the dirt and relaxed his limbs, the grass tickling over whatever skin wasn’t already covered by gear or bandage.

Bruce looked like he wanted to argue, but his shoulders slumped as he watched Clint, and finally he collapsed down on the grass next to him with an exhausted sigh. “That doesn’t sound like the worst idea.”

Clint felt a smile on his face as he shut his eyes. He thought Bruce was already asleep, but a moment later there was rustling in the grass and Bruce had rolled over to face him.

Clint’s breath caught, but all Bruce said was, “Just remember I can’t let you sleep for too long, in case you got knocked on the head worse than I thought.”

“I’m fine with that,” Clint mumbled. “As long as you’re the one waking me up.”

He couldn’t see Bruce’s face, but he could feel the smile as a warm shape settled next to him in the grass, the two of them barely a breath away from each other. The sun and the waving grass were soft and peaceful, and it didn’t take long for both of them to fall asleep.

They were like that when the team found them, two hours later.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (A/N: I know Bruce is his middle name, but I thought it would be funny if Clint didn't)


End file.
